#Hannah Uzor

[terminusantequem]

Hannah Uzor (British/Zambian, b. 1982), TURNING PAGES, 2024. Acrylic on canvas, 175 x 135 cm

[granstromjulius]

Hannah Uzor

[blueiscoool]

Portrait of Catherine, Princess of Wales

A new portrait of Catherine, Princess of Wales has stoked controversy online, with some royal fans criticizing the work for its portrayal of the future British Queen.

The painting, by British-Zambian artist Hannah Uzor, features on the cover of the July issue of Tatler magazine. It aims to honor the “strength and dignity” of the princess, according to a statement from the publication.

It depicts Catherine during her appearance at the first state banquet of King Charles III’s reign, and Uzor said she studied photographs of the princess in the process of creating the work.''

“When you can’t meet the sitter in person, you have to look at everything you can find and piece together the subtle human moments revealed in different photographs: do they have a particular way of standing or holding their head or hands? Do they have a recurrent gesture?,” she said in the statement.

Uzor also revealed that Kate’s recent video announcing a cancer diagnosis informed the work.

“All my portraits are made up of layers of a personality, constructed from everything I can find about them,” she said in the statement.

However, not everybody appreciated the portrayal of the princess.

“This is dreadful - somehow, I’m not sure the artist is a fan of the Princess - it looks like a bad GCSE project,” reads one comment under a post from Tatler on X.

“This looks nothing like the Princess of Wales. It’s so awful, it’s disrespectful,” reads another.

However, some did praise the work, with one calling the painting “beautiful.”

“Am I the only person who likes this? It’s art, not a photo,” wrote another commenter.

And it wasn’t just social media users who reacted to the painting.

Alastair Sooke, chief art critic at UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph, said in an article that the painting was “intolerably bad” and “shows no flicker of resemblance to its subject.”

“Has there been a flatter, more lifeless royal portrait in living memory?” Sooke wrote. “Beneath a Lego-like helmet of unmodulated, monotonously brown ‘hair,’ this Princess of Wales has as much charisma as a naff figurine atop a wedding cake.”

Kate Mansey, royal editor at The Times of London, was also non-plus.

“I’m not quite sure what to say about this one, except, hmm…” she wrote on X.

The backlash follows a similar discussion surrounding the first official portrait of King Charles III since his coronation, which was revealed earlier this month.

The 8.5 by 6.5-foot painting by British artist Jonathan Yeo depicts the monarch wearing the uniform of the Welsh Guards, sword in hand, against a fiery red background that appears to almost swallow him whole, as a butterfly looks like it’s about to land on his shoulder.

While the King is reportedly happy with the portrait, others criticized the lurid red brushstrokes, with one person likening it to a “poster for a horror film.”

By Jack Guy.

[artschoolglasses]

Sarah (Aina) Forbes Bonetta Davies, Hannah Uzor, 2020

[blackexcellence]

#BlackHistory365 Art Round-Up ⬇️

Elsa Soares via @rodrigoincolors

"This is Elsa Soares. She's one of the biggest names in Brazilian music and considered a matriarch of Brazilian black artistry. BBC named her the voice of the millenium and she was one of the most important and loudest voice against racism, LGBTQIA+ and women rights, among other social causes. She's died yesterday at age 91. This is a very simple, but sincere tribute to her. May you rest in power!

Please, listen to her music and search more about this great woman."

2. Portrait of Sarah Forbes Bonetta by Hannah Uzor via @fyblackwomenart

Portrait of   Sarah Forbes Bonetta by  Hannah Uzor

Sarah Forbes Bonetta  was an Egbado princess of the Yoruba people in West Africa who was orphaned during a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey and later became the slave of King Ghezo of Dahomey. In a remarkable twist of events, she was liberated from slavery by Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the British Royal Navy and became a goddaughter to Queen Victoria. She was married to Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Lagos philanthropist.

3. Marian Anderson by @novva

I’ve always wanted to do a series on black classical singers for BHM, so here’s a sketch I squeezed in this week—a tribute to the great Marian Anderson!

Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an African-American opera singer and contralto. In 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Washington, D.C, then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt arranged for Anderson to perform an open-air concert on the Lincoln Memorial steps on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939. She was able to deliver a critically acclaimed performance before an integrated crowd of more than 75,000 people, and a radio audience in the millions.

Read more about her accomplishments here, and donate to the National Marian Anderson Museum here.

Remember: tag your history & trailblazers art with #BlackExcellence365 for a chance to be featured!

And keep your eyes out for next month's theme... 👀

[thewomenofwindsor]

Tatler's July 2024 cover completes a royal tryptic of historic magnitude with a new portrait of the Princess of Wales by British-Zambian artist Hannah Uzor.

[teamwindsorroyals]

It's not a photo realist approach and that's not what Tatler wants for its commissioned cover portraits. See...

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tatler (@tatlermagazine)

[fyblackwomenart]

Portrait of   Sarah Forbes Bonetta by  Hannah Uzor

Sarah Forbes Bonetta  was an Egbado princess of the Yoruba people in West Africa who was orphaned during a war with the nearby Kingdom of Dahomey and later became the slave of King Ghezo of Dahomey. In a remarkable twist of events, she was liberated from slavery by Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the British Royal Navy and became a goddaughter to Queen Victoria. She was married to Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Lagos philanthropist.

[royal-diaries-podcast]

Per a statement, the painting—created by artist Hannah Uzor—is based on a photograph currently housed at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It’s one of a series of works commissioned by English Heritage to spotlight historical black figures whose stories have previously been overlooked.

“What I find interesting about Sarah is that she challenges our assumptions about the status of black women in Victorian Britain,” says Uzor, whose family and children share Bonetta’s Nigerian heritage, in the statement. “ … To see Sarah return to Osborne, her godmother’s home, is very satisfying and I hope my portrait will mean more people discover her story.”

[whatevergreen]

James Chappell (1648–1730) at Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire - Glory Samjolly

A servant at Kirby Hall who saved the owner Christopher Hatton from the aftermath of an explosion, and later a pub owner (the first known black English pub landlord).

Dido Belle (1761-1804) at Kenwood, London - Mikéla Henry-Lowe

The daughter of a young enslaved black woman and a Royal Naval officer, Dido was raised as part of the wealthy Murray family in London and spent much of her life at Kenwood House.

Arthur Roberts (1897-1982) at Berwick-upon-Tweed Barracks, Northumberland - Chloe Cox

Arthur Roberts, the son of a Trinidadian man, was born in Bristol and brought up in Glasgow. Enlisting in 1917, Roberts fought during World War One and survived the Battle of Passchendaele. He was later a leading civil rights activist and a fireman during the Blitz.

Emperor Septimius Severus (145-211) at Corbridge Roman Town on Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland - Elena Onwochei-Garcia

Septimius Severus was born in Leptis Magna (present day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. He travelled to Britain in 208 CE, strengthening Hadrian's Wall and reoccupying the Antonine Wall.

Abbot Hadrian (640-710) at St Augustine's Abbey, Kent - Clifton Powell

Abbot Hadrian was an African scholar in Anglo-Saxon England and the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. He was from Cyrenaica, a Roman/Byzantine province in North Africa.

Sarah Forbes Bonetta (1843-1880) at Osborne House, Isle of Wight - Hannah Uzor

The daughter of the slain king of the Egbado clan of the Yoruba, Sarah was captured and enslaved by King Gezo of Dahomey (now Benin) aged five.

Originally named Omoba Aina, she was presented as a so-called 'diplomatic gift' to Captain Frederick Forbes of the H.M.S. Bonetta (saving her from execution) and brought to England in 1850.

Forbes introduced her to Queen Victoria who grew so attached that she paid for her education and became her guardian and godmother.

Above: Six new portraits and their artists, commissioned for the English Heritage exhibition series Painting our Past: The African Diaspora in England, to reflect the long and usually overlooked history of black people in England.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/painting-our-past/

[afrotumble]

Artist Hannah Uzor with her portrait of Sarah Bonetta Forbes at Osborne House (photo credit: English Heritage / Christopher Ison).

[christopherisonphotoblog]

I had the great pleasure of photographing artist Hannah Uzor, for regular client English Heritage recently. Hannah has painted a portrait of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a young African slave who went on to become god daughter to Queen Victoria in the mid nineteenth century. It is the first of several portraits being commissioned of lesser known historical figures who had a minority background and links to English Heritage sites. It’s been lovely to see this fascinating story picked up in the press, including a page three lead in the Guardian today. 🎉 . . . #HannahUzor #portrait #SarahForbesBonetta #EnglishHeritage #photographer #photography #reportage #photojournalism #photojournalist #documentary #photostory #editorialphotographer #editorialphotography #canonukandie #commercialphotographer #commercialreportage #PRphotographer #marketingphotographer #marketing #OsborneHouse #IsleofWight #QueenVictoria #PortraitPhotography #PortraitPhotographer #contextualportrait #artist #painter #BLM (at Osborne, Isle Of Wight, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGC2gpTlW9o/?igshid=bkhfld9zhgzw

[teamwindsorroyals]

In natural light the Princess looks different than she does with evening out makeup on. This is why I think the skin tone is wrong. I do think the artist has captured her eyes and her gaze well.

A follow-up post with video links showing the artist - Hannah Uzor:

It's not a photo realist approach and that's not what Tatler wants for its commissioned cover portraits. See...

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tatler (@tatlermagazine)

[royal-diaries-podcast]

Victoria’s Black Goddaughter: A newly commissioned portrait of Sarah Forbes Bonetta is now on view at the monarch’s seaside house, Osbourne

Per a statement, the painting—created by artist Hannah Uzor—is based on a photograph currently housed at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It’s one of a series of works commissioned by English Heritage to spotlight historical black figures whose stories have previously been overlooked.

“What I find interesting about Sarah is that she challenges our assumptions about the status of black women in Victorian Britain,” says Uzor, whose family and children share Bonetta’s Nigerian heritage, in the statement. “ … To see Sarah return to Osborne, her godmother’s home, is very satisfying and I hope my portrait will mean more people discover her story.”